Turn About

Alex 03

My body slumped down further in the seat. I tried to grasp the rail to keep myself upright, but my hands were rapidly losing their strength. In the end I had to resort to throwing my right arm over the handrail and pushing with my feet to keep me from falling on the floor. This was the express, so there were fewer stops, but something about the way I was breathing made me wonder if it would be fast enough.

Speed continued to pick up until we were blowing across the landscape. All the lights of the city stretched and blurred, it was beautiful, but it had never done that before. Then time started moving in hops, the terrain blanking out and then coming back again. Sometimes I would find myself in a different position after one of the hops and had to push myself back up into the seat.

As I traveled, something did come into my mind. It was strange passing into a dream while I was awake, but then again I might not have been. Only this was no dream, it was a memory. I remembered being in school and wanting to go to college, and then the day I received my corporate sponsorship. It had meant there was hope for my future.

Then I remembered the day I had made the break through on the digital memory model. The angry glares from my fellow researchers, the smooth smile of the 3rd Division President who was promoting me, and the knowledge that I would never be able to relax again.

Finally, there was the day I sold my soul for money and piece of mind. Not the day I took the promotion, it was the day I agreed to sell my research data and working prototype. Once I made the deal, I wanted to back out, but just making the deal was enough to get my killed. Even if I went those on high, at the very least I would be removed from the corporation. My buyer was not above turning me in if he thought I might back out of our deal.

So then I was on the train, carrying the data and the working memory model, and I was dying. I wanted to reverse time to the point where I could escape, but where had I gone wrong? Was it the day I sold out, traded up, or bought in?

The train blew through two more stops before it reached my destination. I pushed myself to my feet, and nearly fell over. Not only was my shirt soaked, but I could feel my pants sticking to me as well. I dimly wondered about that, but my head felt fuzzy like it was wrapped in wool. All my thoughts were distant and fleeting.

Somehow, I made it off the train and ended up in a stumbling sort of horizontal fall that carried me to the bench. I collapsed on it, this time not bothering to sit up. My eyes felt strange, I might have been seeing everything in black and white, but the station was grey so I couldn't tell.

A shadow detached itself from the wall. His face was familiar as he rushed over to me, but slid to a stop beside the bench. In the space of a moment his eyes slid over me and he let out a slow breath. His face was expressionless, and would have been chilling to me on any other day. Despite the lack of emotion there, I could see the hint of disapproval in his eyes, or was I just imaging things that weren't there?

"That...bad," I coughed, "it doesn't hurt, like I thought."

"No, Alex," he said in his normal calm, "by this point it usually does not hurt."

I fumbled for the device in my pocket. Chase might have killed me, but there was still a chance the plan could work.

"I need to do...this," my damn throat closed up as I started hacking. More fluid came out of my lips, and I was surprised by the amount.

He helped me remove the device from my pocket, and as I passed it to him there was something like an arc of electricity between our hands. I felt myself being pulled in two different directions, my spirit being torn in half between the pull of earthly technologies, and a much older call that comes to all men.

I looked at the man who stood over me, such a stranger and yet becoming more familiar with each passing second, and knew that I had to confide in him before his knowledge of me would make it pointless. Shortly he would know me as well as I know myself, but not yet, "It was because of the rain...they locked me in that tower, and they took away the rain."

He looked down at me, not understanding, but I knew that he would soon enough.

My thoughts were racing, but unlike usual they had a destination this time. There was no white light, but I could feel a change, almost like a train tunnel that I was entering. Once I reached the other side it would all be over.

He stood over me like a statue, just holding my hand. Before my eyes stopped working I could see him as a silhouette before me, and then it was me looking down from where he stood. A moment later it was all gone.